NOT "Dan Curtis Giveaway" Comics

[Kaleb Swenson]

I have a set of the so called "Dan Curtis Giveaway" comics.  The title is listed this way in the Overstreet Price Guide and in the Grand Comics Database:

https://www.comics.org/series/17607/        for the first issue

It is a series of 6" x 3" reprint books published in 1974 by Western Publishing.  They are numbered 1 through 9.  The reason for the "Dan Curtis" was because the first book has a Copyright of Dan Curtis Productions, Inc.  Dan Curtis was the director, writer, and producer for Dark Shadows.  He was not a comic book publisher.

All of the other books in the series were similarly copyrighted: Star Trek was copyrighted by Paramount Pictures Corporation, Twilight Zone was copyrighted by Cayuga Productions, etc.

(I just think someone was lazy and looked at the cover of the first book, Dark Shadows, gave it the name, and it just stuck.)

All the books have a W S logo on each book, which to me is probably the real title of the series.  I was thinking Whitman (or Western?) Sampler (or Series?)

This book was also not a "giveaway."  It was sold through vending machines.  I didn't get any information on how much they originally cost.  I do also have a header card for the machine.

1. Dark Shadows
2. Star Trek
3. Twilight Zone
4. Ripley's Believe It or Not!
5. Turok, Son of Stone
6. Star Trek
7. The Occult Files of Doctor Spektor
8. Dagar the Invincible
9. Grimm's Ghost Stories

I would like to go ahead and enter them into the database and upload scans, but I would rather have a consensus on the title...other than "Dan Curtis Giveaway."  😁

 

[Mark J. Castaneda]

Western is the publisher it looks like. Naming this title will be the challenge.  Does that header card have any info...a kind of theme we can use the name the title?

[Kaleb Swenson]

I dug out the header card.  It just says "Mystery Comics" and under that it says "Collect all 9 thrilling comics."  No other useful information on the card.

It does have the original price so they originally cost 25 cents.

 

[Kaleb Swenson]

[Kaleb Swenson]

Here is the indicia from the first two issues.

[Mark J. Castaneda]

I'm thinking a title named Mystery Comics (Western) would make sense. We can then list the issue numbers under the title with notes to support them.

ex: #1 (Note: Dark Shadows), #2 (Notes: Star Trek), etc.

 

Thoughts?

[Michael R. Wagner]

I think that makes sense, Mark; it matches up with the header card, which seems to be the only common name for all of the issues.

r/

Mike